Manifesto of the International Anti-War Film Festival

Filming the Truth: A Film Festival Against War

To those who care about humanity, society, and justice,

To those who reflect invisible suffering on the screen, who dare to tear through the darkness,

To those who break the silence created by war by sharing their knowledge, labor, and stories:

Today, cameras must focus on the dust of bombed hospitals, the silence of trenches, and the traces of endless exploitation in poor countries.

Today, we are in an era where wars are no longer confined to battlefields; they have spread everywhere — from the media to classrooms, from our living rooms to borderlines. In this dark time, when nuclear weapons are back on the agenda and the ghost of a global war roams the world, we resist with cinema.

We turn our cameras not only to specific geographies but to everywhere war and exploitation take new forms: to cities under bombs, to silently besieged living spaces, to the shadows of propaganda machines, and to the screens where truths are silenced. Because we know: Cinema is a weapon.

The sovereigns load this weapon with lies. But we will arm it with truth.

Against Hollywood’s glittering lies, the exploitative aesthetics of the bourgeoisie, and the propaganda of the war industry; we will build the cinema of solidarity and resistance.

The fading gazes of children beneath the rubble of destroyed hospitals, the horror caused by bombs descending from the sky, the scream of howitzers that drench the land in blood, the rage of peoples pitted against each other for their rulers, the desperation of young bodies bought and sold in dark markets — we will bring them all to the screen.

Because every pain that is made forgotten paves the way for a new war.

The cinema monopolies tell us, “Accept the realities of the market.” But truth is not on their expensive sets — it is in the bombed streets. They tell us, “Consider the ratings.” But we center not on money, career, or fame; but on truth and justice. We tell the stories of resistance and hope.

We will not just shoot films.

We will produce our films together, and share them together, we will screen them in the streets, in refugee camps, in resistance tents. Because cinema is not the showcase of elite festivals; it is the common language of peoples.

And we will resist war not only with our stories but with our way of production. We will grow solidarity and build the cinema of labor, not capital.

Let’s take risks. Let’s act.

With the International Anti-War Film Festival, we are taking action. Because if a free world is possible, then so is a free cinema.

We stand against war — with solidarity, with cinema, with the festival…